A Merry Little Christmas

A Christmas Adventure for Young Centurions

This adventure takes place between December 1 and Christmas Eve, 1911. Since there are many events on it, the GM can run this adventure around many game Session.

One important thing: violence will ensure the characters will have coal in their socks. Discourage as much as possible that PCs uses violence as problem solving: it’s OK to pull a bully into a stinky pile of junk to gain time to run away, but take revenge by beating him is something that the characters should not do.

This adventure involves the players discovering about the Simbolics (a special kind of Spirit, even more powerful than the Millenials) and their importance in the world. And about how one of them is looking for a successor, while things grows complicated in their home, the Christmas Village.

Scene 1 - A weird boy and some strange beings

Everything begins when the characters get back to their “normal” children life after Thanksgiving. They begin to prepares the Christmas decorations, and they can themselves be looking for items for the decoration of their homes. Remember that it is 1911: Christmas balls was not common in this time, but the use of dry nuts and pine cones next to fireplaces (with appropriate socks) and in the trees were. And no electrical decorations: the house electrification was still under progress. In some cases candles were used in the trees, which was very risky because Christmas trees were highly inflammable.

While they’re joking, studying or doing something else in one of New York’s parks, they find a “new” kid in the area. If they talk with him, he’ll say he’s called Sven Carlsberg, and he’s a little older than the PCs, not being, like all the Spirit of the Century, born on January 1, 1901, but also not being born on 31 December 1900 (thus not being a Shadow). He was actually born on December 25, 1895, being 16 years old.

He is tall and strong, with blond hair (which he calls for some reason “brunette”) and almost ice blue eyes. He just arrived in the United States, and speaks English with a Swedish accent. He seems almost as innocent as the Spirits, but he is a little smarter. Besides, in spite of being very, very poor, he always shares things: as he says “Having little is no excuse to not share!”.

The characters will also find for some reason a very old man also arrived recently in the neighborhood, coming from Italy (as far as they know). He’s called Antonio Natalini, looks really old, but he is almost as vigorous as a 19th Century Spirit: the Spirits of the Century Past, although now weak and not in their best, are very active and vigorous.

All the characters, however, will realize that there is something “fishy” with Natalini. The first thing is that all the characters feels an inner peace when near him. Also, even those very angry with him feels they would not be able to do anything bad near or against him. Finally, her extremely wise eyes seem to be looking for something (or someone) through the city: whenever the PCs find him, he looks like looking everywhere.

A few days go by, when, during the night, they may see some strange being are walking all around the neighborhood, taking advantage on the little street lights. The PCs will see, if they look from a distance, that they wear comfortable clothes against the harsh cold, in the cheerful colors of Christmas: green, gold, yellow, white, and red. If they go into Success With Style in their checks to see the little creatures (usually a +4), they will notice that they resemble children, but even smaller, with pointed ears and small button noses. They may come to the conclusion that they are Santa’s Elves, but any attempt to follow or capture one fo them will be unsuccessful thanks to the Blink Stunt that they all have (see their stats).

At the same time, they will realize, if they are clever enough, that the little creatures always go to Mr. Natalini’s house. Was he Santa Claus?

This will be a charade that they will need to answer.

Scene 2 - The Club and Christmas

Maybe the players will try to talk with their mentors into/or with the Century Club about crazy idea they have about Antonio Natalini being Santa, and vice versa. But, surprise surprise, their mentors and the Club knows about ) Santa Claus (or, more accurately, about all the Santa Clauses) and about the Symbolics, beings similar to the Centurions (and Millennials, if they have found them), but linked to more iconic dates and symbols, like Santa, the Easter Bunny (“Yes, Virginia, there’s an Easter Bunny and he lives in a beautiful farm in Delaware!”), among others.

Because this connection they have to certain symbols and dates, they are called sometimes Guardians or Icons, and they also have the so-called Torch Passing process: the same way the Spirits of each century become weaker in the next century and very few of them survives the first half of that century, the Symbolics also have to pass on their legacy. But in this case it’s almost in a physical way, involving transformations and all the like.

In the case of Santa Claus, this is known as Sign the Santa Clause, which has to do with a kind of “contractual clause” taken by the person who “takes the role” of Santa Claus.

In addition, there’s alsothe reverse of Shadows, called the Symbolic Shadows or Negative Icons: people who inspire evilness and fear, such as Krampus.

In the particular case of Santa Claus, the Club knows a lot about it, but much of what they know is still Classified Information for the Young Centurions, but there’s some information they can share about Santa Claus:

Finally, the Mentors and the Club staff as a whole warn that this investigation would may harsh travels and possible passing through hard events for which they maybe can not be fit by now. This is their first “real mission,” where the Young Centurions will have to learn from their mistakes and deal with things by themselves, without their mentors.

Scene 3 - The Evil Arrives

Meanwhile, while the Young Centurions are searching for information, people start to spread rumors of a ghastly creature that looks to search for children to kidnap. Those who manage to escape, especially those of Slavic-German ascendence, are so terrified that all they can say is one word.

“Krampus,” the legendary monster looking for the children on Santa’s Naughty List, to do terrible things to them, whether to hurl them into cold, tortuous rivers or to turn them into pie fillings! It’s known that at least two children were already kidnapped, which is enough to spread Panic in the city!

And then they will find Sven again, terrified, that will say that he saw the Krampus recently and ran away, but that he feared that it would find him. He will describe Krampus as a beastly, hairy creature with horns and goat paws and hands with huge claws, almost three times as tall as Sven himself (who is not a midget with his 5’ 7” height), but that he wants to fight against the Krampus.

At this moment, they will see the Krampus arriving: he is even uglier than the creature Svendescribed, and he has a nauseating stink coming from him. Make clear to the PCs that facing Krampus can result in death (or WORSE)!

If, at any time, the Krampus attacks Sven, this will make an unexpected help appears: the Santa’s Elves will help the characters evade from the Krampus, and all of them will eventually flee to Natalini’s house, avoiding Krampus when the Elves use their Blink Stunt.

Scene 4 - The distress call

As the characters recover their breath and calm down, Mr. Natalini will offer them some mugs of hot chocolate as they sit oven the comfortable pillows in Mr Natalini’s room: everything in Mr. Natalini’s living room and robes has shockingly Christmas Colors, with the Christmas Colors everywhere where they can see, in the most shocking tones possible, even for the dark colors.

If they talk for them about their suspicions, he will be bluntly frank (at least for kids), as he has nothing to hide: he is Santa Claus. If any of them think this is a joke, pay a Fate Point to them, and AUTOMATICALLY Natalini will Discover and Reveal an Aspect of them, without need to check (it’s part of their “Know when you’ve been bad or good”).

He will say that his real name is really fact Antonio Natalini, and was born in Florence on December 25, 1790, when it was under Austrian-Hungarian flag, signing the Santa Clause in 1810. Therefore, he started a search his successor. In the case, he already have several boys and girls of the city as potential successors.

And among them, Sven, who, knowing this, does not accept this into a blink of eye: he’s an orphan, so he doesn’t have a family to leave behind, or anything at all, even when Natalini says he must take the Successor to Christmas Village, a place “outside the world”, so inaccessible by “normal means”.

Natalini also reveals that he knows the the Century Club and has followed all the actions of the 19th Century Spirits, and hopes that the Club will be able to improve life for all, and also hopes that the characters follow this honored tradition of seeking a better life for the Manking.

At this moment, some Elves arrives and warn Santa that something very bad happened: his powerful enemy, the Ice Queen, attacked the Christmas Village, and caused lots of damage before “fleeing”, stealing many toys and destroying the facilities, making the Reindeers and several Elves to flee! This has the potential to destroy everyone’s Christmas!

Natalini will ask the characters for help: the situation is very bad, and even if it’s not as chaotic as it looks, Christmas is coming fast, and even taking Sven with him, Santa thinks there would be no time to fix everything by himself alone, and even with the Elves, there would not be time enough to organize everything. But with the PCs, they will certainly have chances!

If the PCs refuses to help Santa Claus (“booooooooo…. Meanies!”), the adventure ends here, with the characters getting coal in their socks, instead of the gifts at Christmas. Otherwise, they will have time only to alert the Club and their Mentors about their whereabouts (who will be responsible for dealing with their parents), and they’ll depart on Santa’s Sleigh (see on the same in the Appendixes) to the Christmas Village.

Scene 5 - Christmas Village

The PC and Sven climbs up on Santa’s Sleigh and head for Christmas Village, that every child knows is at the North Pole.

As they approach it, they see a small glade amid the inclement snow of artic winter: in this glad, everone can see a series of Chalets which, although humans-sized, looks like Dollhouses. However, things are not a bed of roses: although these Chalets are Very Colorful, looks like many of them are damaged.

In the center of this small village, a larger construction can be seen: this is Santa’s House and Studio, where he lives, creates new toys, and carries out special projects before the Artisans Elves starts to produce the new toys in their workshops. It also serves as the Toys Warehouse. Everyone sees that the Elves are still seem getting everything in place… Anyway, the attack was terrible!

When arrives, the PCs will see that, despite the icy wind, the City is very warm, considering what you would expect at that time on a North Pole Winter. However, they will really feel cold: if they mention this, some Elves will lend some jackets that will keep them warm until they wear more appropriate clothes for the weather.

Natalini, or rather, Santa will come and put things right, calling some Elves that are responsible for specific things and asking them for more information about what happened:

During the Natalini absence while he was looking for a potential successor, the Ice Queen, one of Santa’s worst enemies, left her Snow Palace and attacked the city of Natal with a few helpers, including Giants, Hags , Evil Wolves Packs and Cold-Hearted, children turned cold and cruel after being their hearts frozen.

Apparently, the Queen’s goal was not to destroy the Village, but rather to cause enough mess to disrupt their plans for Christmas: as soon as she was thought it was enough, she ran away, even knowing that even with the help of Snowmen and Jack Frost, the Elves would be defeated by their forces.

But even so, there is plenty to do to ready everything for Christmas, at least as much as possible, and we hope the characters will help as Time Urges!

In this case, the tasks will be tiresome, and even the Santa’s Elves, Positive and Energy-filled Cultures, are beginning to wear out under the hard work: that would be already a busy time of work normally, without all the mess that this attack turned things grows even more complicated.

Before the PCs are introduced to the taskes they could do, some Elves take them to a small Chalet, which they will share: there are two bedrooms with small but cozy bunk beds. Despite the small dimensions and Dollhouse measures, the Chalet is comfortable enough for them to rest during their spare time. Also, they will be provided with Elven-like clothing: sweaters, jackets coats of heavy wool, in vibrant colors, which, besides protecting them from the the icy cold weather, keeping them warm, allows them to be easily located in the middle of the White Artic Waste, which can both be a bane and a bless.

After they were dressed on appropriate clothes and fed (with cookies, warm bread with melting butter and hot cocoa), one of the Elves, called Casper, will call the PCs:

“Santa said that you are willing to help us ready things so everything is right for Christmas Eve. Well, we need basically all kind of help in everything, but there are some tasks you can do to help us.”

It will then list the following tasks:

  1. Search for Santa’s Reindeer that has been abducted
  2. Rescue the Elves who fled during Ice Queen attack
  3. Help repairing/reconstructing the Christmas Village
  4. Recover/Build Lost Toys

Let the characters try as many tasks as they wish and their time allows, but at least they should perform (alone or as a team) at least one of those tasks. The Elves will provide all the tools they need for group defense, but make clear that no matter what happens, the they should not shed the first blood no matter what, or they’ll be put under to a serious curse and will lost themselves in the midst of the White Waste and never be seen again. Make it clear that Casper is being business on this.

The PC will be armed with short swords, knives, daggers, slings with some pellets and perhaps a bow with a quiver of arrows. Despite the colorful and almost toy look of the items, make it clear that despite all they are not toys!

In all missions, at least one Elf will go with them as a scout, guide and support. In some of them, they will accompany the characters to specific points, and will explain how things work.

Let’s see how each mission will works.

Scene 5.1 - Searching for Santa’s Reindeer that was abducted

This scene can be very easy or very difficult according the PCs actions. The Elf scout will take them through the midst of the Dark Forest that surrounds the region until they see a big Castle, mad on a almost Diamond-like ice. This is the Ice Queen’s Castle.

“I nedd to say: be very careful when you enter, and even more careful when there. The Ice Queen is very powerful in their magic, that is dangerous and extremely cruel, and trying to defeat her by force can be the worst solution. Trust your own skills and everything will be alright!”

The truth is that, although not exactly easy, breaking into her Castle using silver tongue, subterfuge or larceny may be the best way to do things. Threat invasion as a Contest against a Good (+3) Risk. Before they start the Contest, give them time to understand the situation and Create Advantages, as many as possible.

One important thing: the main guards are the Cold-Hearted, children whose spirit has become cold and evil thanks to the mystical arts of the Ice Queen, which froze their hearts: although they look like normal children, they wear uniforms colored in the Queen’s black with her Black Rose as Coat of Arms. Their hair is white and looks like small sharp icicles, and no matter what, they looks like they feel no cold, no matter how harsh is the weather.

If any of the PCs asks if it’s possible to disenchant a Cold-Hearted, the answer will be negative: unfortunately, once a heart is frozen by the Ice Queen’s mystical arts, there is no chance of healing them back, the most merciful thing they can do being making their hearts do one last freedom-given heartbeat.

The PCs will be lucky: the Reindeers are not into the Castle, but in the Queen’s stables. That’s the good news.

The bad news is: since the PCs are not the Elves or Santa, even if they are dressed as them, the Reindeers will be reluctanrt on go with the PCs and will make a lot of noise, sending any disguise or subterfuge previously done by the characters to the dogs! However, as soon the Queen or her henchmen come for them, they’ll run!

The Reindeers Run

  • PC Objective: make the Reindeers go back to the Christmas
  • Opposition Objective: Keep the reindeers in their prison, so that Santa can not deliver the Christmas gifts.
  • Situation Aspects: Noisy Noises!!!!; Evil forces are chasing us!!!; The White Waste;
  • Recommended Scene Type: Contest between the PCs Approaches against a Good (+3) Chasing Horde
  • Victory: The PCs reach Christmas Village with the reindeers and enemies can’t make their way to Christmas Village
  • Partial Defeat (PCs Concede): The conceding PCs are captured, but the Reindeers manages to make their way to Christmas City.
  • Defeat: The PCs and Reindeer are captured back

Into a Defeat, the PCs are captured by the Ice Queen and brought to the Ice Queen Castle. If all the PCs are Captured, Santa will find a way to rescue them, but this will cause even more trouble, as The time to Christmas is growing short! (this Aspect comes into play with a Free Invocation and can be used by the GM - treat this as a Secret Aspect)

Scene 5.2 - Rescue the Elves who fled during the Ice Queen attack

The PCs will discover that some Elves have fled to the Forest, while others were imprisoned in the Ice Queen’s Fortress.

The biggest problem here is that the PCs will need to face several enemies, not just the Evil Wolves, Trolls, and the Cold-Hearteds. The Forest is Dark and Cold, and this can complicate the PCs’ lives, making them going ill depending on the events.

There are a total of a dozen Elves lost in the Forest and 6 trapped in the Fortress. Each success in a suitable test frees an Elf, and a Success With Style allows them to free half of the still fled/trapped Elves (minimum 2). A Failure turned into a Sucess with a Cost can free an Elf, but by puting an Alarm! Boost against the PCs, especially in the Fortress. The difficulty of the tests are Fair (+2) in the Forest and Giid (+3) in the Fortress.

In the Forest, they can find an unusual help: The Grinch, a really evil creature who lives in the Forest and who basically Hates Everybode. But he respects who leaves him by himself, as Santa usually does. He is very angry with the Ice Queen, who took advantage of Santa’s “escape” to mess things up. All he wants is to be alone in his quietude: if the PCs promise to not make a mess in the Forest, which is the home of the Grinch, he will help them with a passive +1 Teamwork in the PC tests to rescue the Elves.

Rescuing the Elves

  • PC Objective: rescue the Elves who fled/were captured during the attack to the Christmas Village
  • Opposition Objective: Held the Elves captive and/or capture those who are not (and the PCs in the process)
  • Situation Aspects: Night, Cold and Enemies; The Grinch just wants to stay quiet in his place.
  • Recommended Scene Type: Challenge
  • Victory: The characters rescue all the Elves
  • Partial Defeat (PCs Concedes): The characters are captured, but the Elves rescued so far are able to get to Christmas Village.
  • Defeat: The PCs are captured back

Into a Defeat, the PCs are captured by the Ice Queen and brought to the Ice Queen Castle. If all the PCs are Captured, Santa will find a way to rescue them, but this will cause even more trouble, as The time to Christmas is growing short! (this Aspect comes into play with a Free Invocation and can be used by the Narrator - treat this as a Secret Aspect)

Scene 5.3 - Help repairing/reconstructing the Christmas Village

The Ice Queen has caused a big mess and getting everything in order before Christmas will be a priority: leaving the defenses low against the Ice Queen is not a good idea.

This is the easiest and at the same time the hardest of ways to help Santa. Easiest because you just have to perform a Challenge with a number of successes in different tests to pass through it. Hardest because Failures may indicate that The time to Christmas is growing short! (this Aspect comes into play with a Free Invocation and can be used by the Narrator - treat this as a Secret Aspect)

The tests can be all done to help on all sort of things, like helping to chop down pine trees to strengthen the walls of the Village (Great (+4) Forceful checks) to simpler things, like helping to make hot and comforting food so that everyone stays happy and active (Average (+4) Careful or Clever checks).

Choose how many successes will be needed until the Christmas Village is rebuilt, and use a Reconstruction Stress Track with as many boxes as the number of successes to be obtained (5 to 7 is advised), marking one box for each success. Successes with Style can eliminate 2 boxes, or allow them to take a Boost that can be used until the end of the adventure.

Scene 5.4 - Recover/Build Lost Toys

If the PCs wants to recover the lost toys, there’s two ways to do this in fact:

Option 1 - Recovering the Stolen Toys

In this case, treat as in the case of Scene 5.1, but without the Reindeer’s Noises. If the PCs are lucky or clever enough, they can, with good tests, breaking into the the Warehouse where the Ice Queen were storing the stolen toys, get everything back, and leave unnoticed. Santa will lend to the PC the Santa’s bag so they can pick up the toys without any problems.

Option 2 - Building New Toys

This is a viable option if the characters are competent to build toys, or are just good with doing stuff.

This can be treated as a Contest, between the characters and the Short Time, which is Good (+3) for the purposes of the tests

Building New Toys

  • PC Objective: buil the new toys to replace the stolen ones
  • Opposition Objective: Make the characters lose precious time
  • Situation Aspects: Where are the materials?!; This is how you make a toy; Handmade, Delicate Things
  • Recommended Scene Type: Contest between the characters and the Short Time
  • Victory: The PCs creates very special toys!
  • Defeat: The PCs wastes precious time!

In the event of a Defeat, the Characters spent time but would not build all the necessary toys and The time to Christmas is growing short! (this Aspect comes into play with a Free Invocation and can be used by the Narrator - treat this as a Secret Aspect). They can try another time, but you should at least raise the Short Time level to put pressure under the PCs.

Epilogue - Christmas Eve

We hope the characters have been able to help Santa enough. If they were, in the end of things, like the Elves and Santa itself, they will be exhausted, but happy, as Christmas is saved this year!

Now the PCs will need to say goodbye to Sven, who has already decided to stay behind, as Successor of Santa Claus. So his education as Santa begins now.

But before the farewells, Santa Claus, or rather, Mr. Natalini will put the PCs into the delivery of the Christmas gifts all the world. Hopefully none of them will try some bad idea: Santa is kind, but he has no problem leaving some mischievous boy with no gifts.

At the end of the world gifts delivering, the Young Centurion themselves will receive simple, but very beautiful gifts. No weapon (at most, slings or corkscrews rifles), but beside of this can be any common toy for the time, such as sleds, balls, baseball cards or bats or even complete doll houses. To this will be added the beautiful clothes they received in Christmas Village.

Finally, Santa will use on them a little Fairy Dust, and the characters will sleep.

When they wake up, they will be in their beds, in their houses …

… but they will realize that it’s Christmas morning, and they will see in a corner of their rooms the toys and clothes that Santa gave them, with a letter written by him:

“Don’t worry … Your parents think that you have received your gifts from a powerful and generous philanthropist named Natalini … Which is somewhat true between us (giggles).

Stays with the kind heart and the ingenuity that you have.

Antonio Natalini”

All that incredible adventure … “It was not a dream …“

Appendix 1 - NPCs

Sven Carlsberg - Potential Santa Claus Successor

Antonio Natalini - Santa Claus in search of his Successor

Santa’s Elves

Krampus

Talisman: The Despair Bag

Use the Nest Talisman Rules

The Despair Sack is a filty, dirty , stinky sack, made apparently of smudgy tow, but in fact it is even worse, for it is The Sack that brings terror in every child that sees it, since it is said that Krampus uses this sack to take any child who has been at Santa’s Naughty List to Hell, or to drown it, or keep the child inside it until it decides to devour it, or take it away from its parents forever (which version, or versions, is/are true is at Narrator discretion).

The Ice Queen

Talisman: The Ice Queen’s Magic Rod

Use the Nest Talisman Rules

A Rod made of a Glass-like icy material, this is an Rod of Extremily Evil Power, created by the Ice Queen to channel her terrible spells. It is through this wand that she freezes the hearts of children, turning them into the Cold-Hearted, their lieutenants and more powerful servants.

Giants

Hags

Evil Wolves

Trolls

Cold-Hearted

The Grinch

Appendix 2 - The Simbolics

The Symbolics… A Mystery even greater than the Spirits and the Shadows, the Centurions and the Millennials.

We believe that they are born on specific dates, and that, similar to the Centurions and Millennials, they demonstrate certain specific abilities and characteristics of what they can become.

However, unlike the Centurions and Millennials, the Symbolics have some specific characteristics:

  1. First, there is usually only one or a few of a certain kind of Symbolic. For example, at no moment in history the Club registered more than one Santa Claus or some Easter Bunnies;
  2. The period of time during which they are more powerful is somewhat variable, being not like as in the case of the Centurions (one century) or Millennials (one millennium);
  3. Often, the Symbolics know the importance of their existence to the collective of humanity. Therefore, every Symbolic has some type of Safeguard for an Emergency, in case for some reason the Symbolic is killed by violence. This is the case of the Santa Clause.

Symbolics are also known as Icons or Guardians, as they symbolizes a certain element inherent in human society in some way. Thus, many of them are known and cataloged in some way. Below is a list of those that are known by Club, with some little pieces of information. Usually this information is Classified to certain Centurions, and therefore would not normally be available to Young Centurions, except in extreme need:

  1. Santa Claus: It is known that Santa Pass the Legacy every 120 to 150 years. Usually the Santa Claus is someone who was born on December 25th. His HQ is in the Christmas Village, an “external place”, normally inaccessible by normal means, located in the North Pole, somewhere in Lapland;
  2. The Easter Bunny: In fact, the Rabbits, usually live in special places that they call as Burrows or Wardens, large farms in “outside places” in the middle of the Rural Areas of some countries, where they prepare the Easter eggs presents. Strangely, they are great fighters. The Easter Bunny who works in North America lives on a large farm in Delaware;
  3. Tooth Fairy: One of the most curious, lives traveling from place to place. It is never seen for more than a few days in some region and has no known HQ;
  4. Uncle Sam: One of the most recent ones, he’s normally seen near Washington D.C., but has also been seen defending the values ​​of the nation amidst complicated situations anywhere within the American territory;
  5. Cupid: A mischievous and benign little angel, is occasionally seen here, there and everywhere, with his Arrows of Love. It’s believed that his HQ of operations is in the region near Athens;
  6. Paul Bunyan: The Giant that equals Uncle Sam in Canada, is usually seen close the snowy region, especially in the North, like Alberta, helping his friends Mounted Police;

There are many other Symbolic, but even in the Club the knowledge about them is Sparse and Confused. It is believed that, indeed, even among them this is true.

Appendix 3 - Extra - The Santa Clause

  • Permission: to had dressed the Santa Suit (consciously or not of the Santa Clause) and sat into the Santa’s Sledge; Only one person in the whole world may be under the Santa Clause at the same time
  • Cost: Concept + one or more Aspects

Father Christmas, Jolly Old Elf, St. Nicholas, Old Nick, Santa Claus… Since immemorial time, this person has been given hope in the end of the year for the poorest and the good-hearted, distributing gifts according to the need of each one.

What few people know is that there is no Santa Claus … In fact, the one whe came to be known as Santa Claus are or were people who signed the Santa Clause.

Whenever something happens to the person who is the bearer of Santa Clause (which we will call Bearer), make him disappears (it is never clear if it dies and dissipates or goes somewhere else: this is at the discretion of the Narrator). Inside Santa Suit’s Jacket there is a small card that identifies the same as Santa Claus, North Pole, and where it is written back: “If something happens to me, please wear my clothes. The reindeer will know what to do”. If someone does as the card says, he/she will see that he/she will have access to Santa’s sleigh and the Reindeer, and that he/she will do the Christmas gift delivery (in fact, he’ll be Compelled to Help - this becomes a Mild Mental Consequence during Christmas Eve). She will be able to make the deliveries, due to the powers of the Santa Suit (we will see more about later), and will eventually be taken to the North Pole, where the Santa Claus Elves will talk about what Happened with the old Bearer (and with the now new Bearer).

A person successful into an Epic (+7) Careful (+7) check can detect some text in REALLY small letters around the card. It contains the terms of Santa Clause, which can be read in the person native language:

The Santa Clause: In putting on the suit and entering the sleigh, the wearer waives any and all rights to any previous identity, real or implied, and fully accepts the duties and responsibilities of Santa Claus in perpetuity until such time that wearer becomes unable to do so by either accident or design.”

In fact, that’s exactly what happens: the moment a person wears the Suit and enters the Sleight, the one who does it begins a slow and gradual process of transformation into Santa Claus. Despite what it says on the card (with all the legalese), the person does not lose his personality. However, gradually, his personality and physique is magically adjusted to the shape of Santa Claus. At first the person may begin to feel an uncontrollable desire for milks and biscuits (as the legend says), and his hair begins to whiten. In time, however, the transformations will become the target ever closer to the “ideal form” of Santa Claus: he will be able to immediately detect whether a person is lying to him or not; The children will feel more and more willing to talk to him; If he does not already have it, he will feel aversion to violence and a propensity for conciliation; and so on. When it is a month away from Christmas, it will be led again (and definitively) to the Christmas Village, to prepare for Christmas.

When it is spoken that the character waives any and all rights to any previous identity, real or implied, is not true, or at least not totally. In rule termis, until the character is brought back to Christmas Village, he will rewrite his Concept and at least one of his other Aspects (preferably one that goes directly against what is expected from Santa) to be consistent with their new Santa status. He doesn’t forget who he is, but he feels more comfortable being Santa.

Being Santa is a Great Responsibility, with proper powers:

Santa’s Stunts:

Aspects of the Santa Clause:

Santa is powerful, but he is also subject to a number of problems. In particular, it is subject to a series of Aspects connected with the Santa Clause:

Those Aspects are added to those of the character himself and can be used normally by him as long as he is the Santa Clause’s Bearer.

Extra: Santa’s Sleigh

  • Permission: The person must have dressed in the Santa Claus Suit and/or be _Santa Clause’s Bearer
  • Cost: _Special - Got into it is a prerequisite to be the _Santa Clause’s Bearer (consciously or not)

Santa’s Sleigh is certainly the fastest vehicle in our world. After all, Santa must spend in the homes of 7 billion people (Santa Claus, after all, makes no distinction at all, except if they were good or bad). In fact, time for him flows into a different flow, no matter what. He will ALWAYS be on time to deliver gifts, no matter what.

In terms of rule, the Sleigh demands Good (+4) for driving, but as a good point it is The Sleigh that takes you wherever you want, instantly.

Santa’s Sleigh follows the Nest Talisman creation form

Extra: Santa Suit

  • Permission: Another person can wear Suit only when the Santa Clause Bearer is Defeated
  • Cost: _Special - Using it is a prerequisite to be the _Santa Clause’s Bearer (consciously or not)

The Santa Suit is iconic: anyone in the world can recognize the velvet red pants with occasional green and gold details and the red jacket with white details along with the similar hat. The Jolly Old Nick suit is much more than a cute, fluffy costume that catches the eye around the world, occasionally attracting the attention of children and adults. He is one of the items that most help Santa!

Santa Suit follows Nest’s Talisman system

Extra: Santa’s Bag

  • Permission: Can only be used by or lent by the Santa Clause Bearer
  • Cost: None

Santa’s Huge Bag of Gift is the most important of all Santa’s items, as it is the Gift Bag that has everything people need. It usually appears being huge, to the point of ocupy all the the back of Santa’s Sleigh, though it may contain things even bigger than it!

Santa’s Bag follows Nest’s Talismans creation system

Hooks for Adventures

  1. One of the characters had signed unknowlingly the Santa Clause, and now wishes to “revoke” it, because he as he does not want to leave his family. The elves claim that it is possible to transfer the Santa Clause to a person who volunteers to accept it, as long the volunteer is pure in heart and still believe in the Christmas Spirit, but there’s someone like this in our cynical times?
  2. From time to time, Santa Claus must pass the torch to a suitable person. However, the legend says that if a Christmas happens happens without a Santa, the world will become a bitter and somber place. How to prevent this legend from happening? And how do you convince someone he’s destined to be Santa?
  3. The Santa Clause Bearer has a son, and he is on the Naughty List. Why is Santa’s son on it? And which consequences can have for both Santa Claus and his son, and for children around the world?